[3] During World War II, Brittenden served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force in Britain and the Bahamas.

[11] Reviewing the book in the Christchurch Press, Iain Gallaway wrote of Brittenden: He has described with his customary apt use of metaphors and similes each one's peculiar gifts, attributes and failings (the chapter devoted to S. N. McGregor is a particularly brilliant illustration of this) analysing in a manner which confirms his profound knowledge of the game, and describing in a manner which I have always felt likens him so much to that most gifted English journalist, Denzil Batchelor.

In 1977 Brittenden wrote The Finest Years: Twenty Years of New Zealand Cricket, covering 17 significant Test Matches beginning with the victory at Auckland in 1956 and ending with the victory over India in Wellington in 1976; 22 profiles of leading players of the period follow.

[14] Brittenden also wrote Give 'em the Axe: The First Hundred Years of the Christchurch Football Club (1963), and ghost-wrote Bert Sutcliffe's memoirs, Between Overs (1963).

[6] In the 1985 Queen's Birthday Honours, Brittenden was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to sporting journalism.